IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2019 - 90

need for the APEC Program Committee to accept all the good papers submitted, but that comes at the cost of
so many sessions in parallel and
speakers limited to 15 minutes to
present their work. There is so much
hustle and bustle, scrambling from
one session to another, that I leave the
conference exhausted rather than
refreshed. Even so, I am already making my plans to attend APEC 2020.
As I am self-employed, I do have
some freedom to attend more than one
conference or workshop a year. So
when project schedules and circumstances permit, I do try to get to a
smaller conference or workshop. In
recent years, I have been attending the
Wide Bandgap Power Devices and
Applications (WiPDA) workshop as
that aligns with some of my professional and research interests. It is
refreshing to go to an event where one
can take the time to meet new people
and have extended and deep conversations. I will say, though, that as WiPDA
has now grown to approximately
250 attendees with up to three sessions in parallel it has become more of
a small conference than a workshop.
There is also the question of the
future of conferences. The questions
that are now often asked are "Why
not just broadcast conferences over
the web? Why do we even need to

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meet in person?" There are requests
for conferences like APEC and ECCE
to broadcast all of their sessions over
the web so that people don't have to
travel and can attend the conference
virtually. I do think that broadcasting
the APEC plenary session is a good
idea. I don't think broadcasting the
entire conference would be. I'm not
opposed to webcasts; I find them useful, informative, educational, and I
watch them as much as anyone else.
But when it comes to a conference,
there is nothing that can substitute
for the face-to-face meetings and conversations with your colleagues and
friends. When I go to APEC, I get as
much out of all the various conversations I have as I do from all the technical sessions together. If the conference were strictly virtual, and I was
just sitting in my office watching over
the web, I would really miss out on
the biggest and most important part
of the conference. I hope that real, inperson, face-to-face conferences continue to be an important part of our
professional experience for a long,
long time.
Today, let us enjoy our good fortune to be in this golden age of power
electronics and power electronics
conferences. There is so much being
offered that we can each choose the
conference or workshop that best fits

We want
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IEEE POWER ELECTRONICS MAGAZINE

z September 2019

our interests, needs, and schedules.
We can either go to a highly focused
workshop like WiPDA, or we can
attend a mega conference like APEC
or ECCE or a mega tradeshow like
PCIM. And we can do this practically
in our own neighborhoods without
having to travel around the world. So,
let us enjoy this good fortune and
take advantage while we can.

About the Author
Robert V. White (bob.white@ieee
.org) has more than 30 years of industry experience as a power electronics
engineer. He has worked in product
design, systems and applications engineering, and technology development.
He has been an active volunteer with
the IEEE Power Electronics Society,
serving several years on the Administrative Committee, two terms as technical vice president, and as a Chapter
chair. He earned a B.S.E.E. degree
from the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and an M.S.E.E. degree
from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
He is currently pursuing a Ph.D.
degree in power electronics at the
University of Colorado, Boulder. Presently, he is the chief engineer of
Embedded Power Labs, a power electronics consulting company. He is a
Fellow of the IEEE.

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IEEE Power Electronics Magazine - September 2019

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